Edward Scissorhands: Only Time
by Phoenix Skyone
Summary: Anya, a seventeen-year-old girl, decides to go up to the "haunted" house on the hill. She doesn't know what lurks up there...His name is Edward.
1. Default Chapter

  
edward  
SCISSORHANDS  
  
chapter  
ONE  
  
A nya Atenesov rounded the corner. A pleasing girl she was, with dark brown hair and fiery green eyes, though she did not pay notice to this. If anyone were to look upon her at that moment, they would see an average Catholic schoolgirl: tall, thin; blue-plaid skirt and a cobalt blouse and tie. This blended in perfectly with the dull small-town shops and cafés that Anya walked amid, so she stepped into the doorway of a shop called Anderson's Booksellers since 1888.  
The bookshop was quiet, and had very few people inside. But the walls and bookshelves were simply full of books of all kinds; in fact if you looked for days you wouldn't be able to find a blank spot on the endless sea of bookshelves inside the shop. Anya made her way to the back of the store, a section labeled Miscellaneous. An old, grungy-looking clerk approached Anya, his hands shaking, a rather nasty grin on his face.  
'Can I help ye find anything, love?' he asked in a rather false voice.  
'No, I'm fine, thanks -'  
'I believe this book might interest you, poppet,' said the man roguishly, slapping a large book into Anya's palms. 'Now, it's been sitting in the back of the store for ages now, just ages, and no one's bought it or even taken a glance at it. I believe the last time it was opened was about.Oh, I'd say fifty years ago. Why don't ye just take a look at it, and tell me what ye think.'  
'Thank you, sir,' replied Anya politely as she opened the leather-bound volume. 'I'll just be back here, then.'  
She took a seat in one of the large, comfortable armchairs in the back of the store and began reading the book. When the man did not move, Anya looked pointedly at him, as if saying with her eyes, 'Go away, for heaven's sake, I'm trying to read.' But at this glance he did leave, and this was greatly to Anya's satisfaction as she enjoyed the peace and quiet. The book was called The Great Legends. Interesting enough, she thought, so she made her way to the cash register and purchased the old manuscript.  
  
As she walked home with the bulging store-bag in hand, Anya wondered why that man had given her the book at random. However, the bookshop was so terribly empty that even she would have urged a customer into buying one of the more expensive books in the store (at nearly twenty pounds, Anya considered it expensive). What would her mother think when she arrived home with the huge tome in hand? Would she scold her for wasting money? Then Anya decided not to tell her mother. After all, it was just a silly book.  
'I'm home,' Anya called as she stepped inside a small brick house. 'Is anyone else home?'  
'We're in the kitchen, dear,' her mother's voice called from just across the hall. Anya took off her black Converse sneakers and walked into the kitchen, where her mother, Mrs. Atenesov, and her friend Rosie were discussing new ideas for supper. 'Anya! How wonderful to see you. Did you stop anywhere after school? You're a bit late.But of course, this is the last day for the holidays.I take it you were chatting about summer plans with your mates, weren't you?'  
'Um, yes,' Anya lied. She had dropped the book off in the living room before she came into the kitchen, so she really had nothing to cover. Rosie smiled and stood up.  
'Well, dear, I'd better be getting home,' she said politely. Anya smiled. That was what she liked about Rosie; she wasn't one of the gossipy, blathering neighbours that seemed to curse the neighbourhood in which Anya lived. 'Now, Anya, before I go: are you planning on participating in any summer camps this holiday?'  
Anya nodded her head, no. She planned to stay either in the house or with her friends, most of whom were not doing camps or vacations either. 'But, I'm probably going to be doing a lot of shopping,' she said, laughing. Rosie chuckled, waved good-by, and hustled out of the front door. Anya turned to her mother.  
'So.' she said, tipping back and forth on her toes.  
'I hope you don't mind baby-sitting Katie tonight,' Mrs. Atenesov replied, changing the subject. Katie, short for Katherine, was Anya's six- year-old sister. She went to Anya's school, but as they weren't in the same year, Anya seldom saw her when she left home (for which she was very grateful). However annoying Katie was, Anya enjoyed baby-sitting her.  
'Yes, that's fine,' Anya said. 'Where are you and Dad going, anyways?'  
'My book club is tonight, and it's "bring your husband" night. We're going to be discussing War and Peace, so it might be a while. Is ten o' clock too late for you?'  
Anya nodded. 'I'm going to take a walk,' she declared. 'See you later, Mum.'  
'Don't forget your jacket!' Mrs. Atenesov called after her daughter's retreating back. 'It's bloody chilly out there, Anya.'  
Anya grabbed a red jumper and put it on over her blouse. She walked down the block in the direction of the 'end of the world,' as the neighbourhood kids called it; simply the place where the street stopped at a very haunted- looking mansion atop a decaying hill. Anya's exact intentions were in fact to venture into the house where no one ever dared stepped. Since she had received the book, even though Anya hadn't read it yet, she had a sudden interest in the house.  
She walked up the leaf-sprinkled path and up to the exquisite garden, full of hedge sculptures and beautiful trees and flowers. The house was quite different from the garden, however; tall, dark, and looming, it sent the immediate thought into anyone's mind that more than one thing had died inside of it. Reluctantly, Anya opened the front door.  
'Hello-o!' she called in a singsong voice.  
The only voice that answered was her own echo, but there seemed to be someone inside. Though a rather frightening site the inside was, it seemed to have been dusted and cleaned regularly, and the hedge sculptures would not look the way they did if no one had kept them up for all this time. Anya called once more.  
'Kim?' a voice answered from the shadows. It was timid; a man's voice, though he couldn't have been any older than twenty-five by the sound of it. Faint 'snip' noises came from where the voice came from, and before Anya could answer, someone emerged.  
Anya screamed.  
This was no ordinary man. Instead of hands, there were scissors; razor- sharp clippers attached to his arms. He was wearing a black leather suit with three single rings connecting one part of his chest-suit to the other. Anya ceased screaming and put on a worried face. 'I'm.I'm not Kim.' she said fearfully. 'Just don't hurt me. Put those d.Oh my God.' Anya was breathing very fast now. She didn't want to die here, now. Suddenly she saw the sympathy in the man's face. He seemed to be around her age, she noted, and it looked like he had been up here for years. Anya spoke, more confidently now. 'Where is your family?' she asked.  
'Gone,' he said quietly.  
'Oh.Do you have a name? Were you born up here?'  
'Edward,' he said, more quietly still.  
Suddenly Anya stopped talking. She remembered what her aunt had told her about a man with scissors for hands, who lived up in the mansion at the top of the hill. It was an urban myth, a legend, but it was true! Edward Scissorhands, he was called. Now she remembered. But Anya knew he wouldn't hurt her, judging by the way her aunt talked of him; how he was so sweet and good-meaning.  
'You won't hurt me, will you?' she enquired.  
Edward smiled. 'No,' he replied.  
'Oh dear.Listen, Edward, why don't you come down to my house. We can fix you up.Help you with those scratches on your face.I'm no Avon lady, but believe me, I know a thing or two about scratches.' Anya pointed to her elbow, which had a long scar on it about the size of a pencil. 'That's a long story. But right now, you're coming with me.'  
Edward followed Anya out the front door, grinning. He was going home.  
  
* * *  
  
'Be quiet.' Anya whispered as she hustled Edward into the doorway of her home.  
She led him to the back room, which was used as a guest room, and therefore was seldom ever used by anyone. Anya doubted her parents would even notice if a man was living in it - they never went in there when no one was staying with them, and why did they ever have to know Edward was? Anya laughed. She had been worried about hiding a stupid book - and now she was hiding a person.  
'Is something funny?' Edward asked, confused.  
'No, Edward, it was just something I thought of,' she responded. 'Now.Do you know how to put on clothes?' Her green eyes met his, and something inside them told her that he did not. So, she went into her parents' room and took out some old clothes of her father's; a simple white shirt and black pants. Anya helped Edward into them; and when she was done, Edward looked like an actually normal person - so long as you didn't notice his hands.  
'Anya!'  
Katie was home. Anya, panicking, shoved Edward into the closet, whispering, 'Just hush, be quiet, don't make a noise.I'll be right back.' Anya spun around as Katie walked into the guest room, humming a children's tune as she strode. Apparently Katie had gone out for pizza with her class, for her plaid dress-uniform was faintly stained with tomato sauce marks; as was her mouth and tip of nose. Anya smiled weakly and stood directly in front of the closet.  
'Hi, Anya,' said Katie cheerfully. 'We went out to the pizza parlour. Mummy and Daddy just left. They said they were going to a meeting about books. You get to baby-sit me! Yay! Oh and Mum said that you can microwave dinner. It's in the ice box in the refrigerator.'  
'Thanks, Kay-Kay,' Anya answered, using Katie's second nickname, of which she was not very fond of. 'Why don't you go into the den and watch a movie? I'm just cleaning out the closet in here. I decided it was a bit dusty, right? No one's been in here in - forever, really.' Katie smiled and skipped down the narrow hallway, earning Anya a very relieved sigh. She immediately turned around and let Edward out of the closet.  
Apparently Edward had decided he didn't like suspenders, for he had cut them off while he was in the closet. 'Oh, Edward, those were my father's good suspenders! Well.We won't have you wear those, then, if you don't want to.' Anya unfastened the straps and let Edward walk around the room freely. 'Now.I'll just have to tell Katie - if she sees you - that you're a classmate of mine, and you came home to.celebrate the summer holidays. Does that sound good to you, Edward?'  
'Yes,' he said, still sounding nervous.  
'Loosen up,' Anya said, looping the broken suspenders in a figure-eight around her arms. 'No one can be as uptight as you, my friend. Positively no one.' She smiled and continued doing her figure-eight with her father's suspenders. 


	2. Deadly Memories

AUTHOR'S NOTE: At this point in the story I am going to be posting from Edward and Anya's points of view. On the document I am typing on, their names are printed in italics just above the portion of the story in which they narrate. As you all know, italics are made impossible by FanFiction.Net, so if you see a name floating around in between two paragraphs, this means that the name given is the new narrator.  
Secondly, I have created a 'flashback/memory' mode in this story which is only a few short paragraphs separated from the others by double-spacing, beginning and ending with the following symbols: . Please understand that italics CANNOT be used on this website, so sorry for the inconvenience to you all.  
I hope that's clear to you, but if it isn't please email me and I'll explain. Thanks for your time!  
Phoenix Skyone  
  
chapter  
TWO  
  
Anya  
  
O nce I had tucked Katherine into bed, I saw to it that Edward had a place to sleep. I had begun to take great interest in The Great Legends, now that I knew Edward himself was a "great legend;" as he had been published in the manuscript. Words couldn't express how amazed I was at that point, so I simply stared open-mouthed at Edward as he sat motionless on the floor next to the book that made him famous around Wiltshire.  
It is a strange thing, however; how so many people rejected Edward all those years ago. After reading his 'story,' I realised how terrible his life must have been since he was created. I was almost astounded at some of the things written down. Here is what it said, and here is what I understood was one of the hardest things in Edward's life:  
'Edward "Scissorhands," as he has been named, is one of the most mysterious legends in Wiltshire's history. After his creator, who could possibly have been the genius Professor William Hall of Salisbury, Wiltshire; passed away, Edward found refuge in the dark depths of his hilltop-castle. Not long ago, he was swept away to a pastel paradise called Suburbia, a neighbourhood not far from where Edward was created. Here, he faced both hardship, prejudice, and the astounding power of friendship and family. After he supposedly fell in love with a local girl, Kim Boggs, Edward was locked away in the castle for his own benefit, after killing the boy who tried to murder him. Kim told Suburbia that he had died in a roof cave-in.  
'From then on he remained hidden in the castle, wasting away his grief in ice-statues and hedge-sculptures. Until the present day, the mystery of Edward Scissorhands has never been unlocked, but we can keep on hoping he will reveal himself soon.'  
His story had touched my heart. I felt so sorry for him, it was almost amazing. But I did not tell him how I felt; in fact I simply told him that I was proud of him for making it into the book, even thought it was not of his own doing. Probably the only person that could have told Zaria Joselon- Mathos about it was Kim Boggs herself, who I'm sure, would be willing to tell if she was asked. She seemed quite sweet, judging by what the author had written.  
'Edward!' I called down the hallway. Katie was asleep and I had absolutely no worry that such a heavy sleeper would be awoken by my faint voice. I had been in the kitchen cleaning up from dinner as Edward was sitting in the bedroom with his hands tucked neatly above his knees, trying - well, more hoping - that he wouldn't damage or break anything in the guest room. When he didn't answer I decided to walk over to him and speak to him myself.  
'Oh, Edward, what're you - '  
I froze as a wave of terror washed over me. Edward had fallen onto the floor, and his face was bleeding freely as he seemed to have cut himself. He was obviously unconscious, and I didn't know what to do. Using my knowledge of everything my parents and teachers had taught me throughout childhood, I picked up the telephone and dialled the first number that came into my shady brown head: 9-1-1.  
  
Edward  
  
I couldn't breathe.  
My lungs focussed on their main dilemma, and that was finding air to process through them. I worked my brain very hard to tell my lungs to inhale freely, and still, they seemed contained; pressed down somehow as if a ten-thousand-pound weight had been placed on top of them. And as far as sight went, there was none. My head was spinning in a swirl of shades of grey and black, which I do not count as one of my usual surroundings, however depressing they may be. I knew I was going to die.  
I knew it.  
My brain worked hard to bring more air to my lungs, but soon it had drifted off to a world of the past, a world of nearly one hundred years ago.When I had not lost my faith. This was a world when everything seemed right. And it was a world of the past.  
  
  
  
'Anya!' I scream. My lungs are working again, but I do not care. I'm ready to die now, even though I know that I will not. In an instant my eyes snap open, and I am in a bright room full of men and women in suits just like the ones in my memories. In the mass of waxen colours there thrives one pastel-blue blazer and jeans: Anya. 


End file.
